The designation "Antichrist" has two basic meanings. First, it means "against Christ," or "opposed to Christ." Second, it means "an imitation of, or in place of, Christ." The apostle and prophet John the same fellow who penned the Book of Revelation under divine defined Antichrist in this way:

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is comein the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world" (1 John4:1-3).

We can know, with John’s definition that the Antichrist system, already a part of the world during the apostle’s time, is a deeply spiritual entity. It is not God the Holy Spirit who spawns and perpetuates the Antichrist system; however, it is the evil spirit that first infected Lucifer and the angels who followed him in rebellion. The Bible calls it the "mystery of iniquity" (2 Thess. 2: 7).

Religion is but a "belief system." Usually it involves spiritual or life-after-death matters. But any belief system can become a religious system if "faith" is involved. In other words, when one believes so strongly that it becomes absolutely, irrefutably true in his own mind even though there is no way of proving that belief, it is, in effect, religion to that person- this includes "atheism".

One very relevant example is evolution. No evidence that evolution, the way it is presented, has any basis in fact. Yet the scientific community, the public educational system, governments, and thousands of organizations, are blindly devoted to its tenets. This is religion.

So, the Antichrist system that is prophetically foretold to develop will be a religious system. And the major tenet of that religion will be the commandment to believe that Jesus Christ has not come in the flesh. Again, John the apostle and prophet, said: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of

Let’s look for a moment at this belief that Jesus Christ has not come into the world in the flesh. The first and most obvious meaning of the Antichrist spirit is that it denies that Jesus even came into the world as anything other than a man. The Antichrist spirit might even admit that Jesus might have been a prophet, teacher, or a special man. But the religion of Antichrist denies Jesus as deity, inserting himself into the affairs of mankind.

The second meaning, it can be inferred, is that Jesus Christ came into the world, but not to seek and save the lost. Again, this relegates Him to being merely a historical figure who taught man to do good things. But He certainly didn’t come to redeem mankind from some sort of original sin.

A third meaning of the spirit of Antichrist that says that Jesus Christ has not come in the flesh is a most interesting one, and very relevant to our world today.

We must consider: What is meant by the term come in the flesh?

Did Jesus come in the flesh? Almost everyone, even informed "atheists", believe that a man called Jesus, known by some as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth, was a historical figure who lived at around the time of 1-33 AD. [Or as the revisionists would have it, 1-33 CE. (Common Era).]

So this cannot be what is meant by the "spirit of Antichrist" as defined by John when he said that it is the denial that Jesus came in the flesh. There is, in my view, another a meaning, which I now propose.

This meaning is wrapped up in the nation Israel and the growing attention it is getting from the world community.

The entire world at large, not just the Arab or Islamic world which so vehemently hates the Jew and Israel, gives that country no special place among nations. As a matter of fact, it considers Israel, for the most part, a stumbling block on the road to trying to make peace. Yet, God says in His Holy Word that Israel the Jew is a very special people. They are, He declares, His "chosen people." They are chosen in the sense that He, in His absolute right to choose to do whatever He wants with His creation, has chosen them for a very special and specific purpose.

God has chosen the Jew to bring Jesus into the world. By so doing, God, Himself, has come down to man. Jesus came into the world in "flesh" form. That is, He was a living, breathing human being. Only He was, and is, the very Son of the Living God!

Jesus Christ’s special purpose was to come to die for the sins of the fallen creature called man. He had to come in order to be the perfect sacrifice that will cover the original sin of disobedience in the Garden of Eden, and, subsequently, every sin that has ever been committed--past, present, and future.

Every person who has ever been born is already dead in sin, in God’s holy view. That is, every person was born into a sinful world of sinful beings that must be cleansed of sin, or "saved" from that sin, in order to ever be redeemed. When a person is "born again," he or she is born into the family of God through belief in God’s only begotten Son, the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ came into the world for that purpose. He came in the flesh. To deny that He came for that purpose, and accomplished that purpose, is to partake of the "Antichrist spirit."

Jesus came as a Jew. He was born to a Jewish mother, fathered by God. Jesus was, is, and will forever be the Jewish Messiah. From the standpoint of His human heritage, He is a Jew!

Antichrist, like Hitler, Stalin, and so many other demoniacs throughout the millennia will hate the Jew. He will hate the Jew because his spiritual father,

Satan hates the Jew. They hate the Jew because the Redeemer of all mankind came into this fallen world to save man, and to ultimately overthrow all evil, through a race called the Jew.

To hate Israel (Jews), or even to blame them for the world’s problems, or to write them off, is antichrist at the core. There is no other logical explanation why Jewish people have been so persecuted throughout the ages.

The race has given mankind many, if not most, of its grandest achievements, no matter which field we consider. Yet, the Jews have been reviled as the scourge of the world.

There is today a religious fervour again building. It is building in Europe like in the months leading up to Hitler’s becoming chancellor, then fuehrer, of Germany during the 1930s. This fervour is a fever. It, at its festering centre, denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. It is Antichrist in its implications!

This will be the core belief of the tribulation religious system found in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation. The religionists, as well as the secularists, i.e., every aspect of society during those seven years of horror particularly the last three and one-half years-- will persecute, hunt down, and murder Jews. They will hunt down not only Jews, but the saints of Christ who have been saved during that era.

Coming back to the present, a question should be asked. Do we see this denial that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh within the Christian faith today?

I think the answer is a resounding "Yes!"

Replacement theology is on the rise. This means church theology is more and more putting forth the heresy that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s prophetic plans despite God’s clear statements to the contrary in Romans 11. These theologians hold to the belief that God is through with Israel, That His covenants with the Jews are no longer in effect. They are denying Jesus’ Jewishness.

Such belief and teaching is apostate. It is antichrist at its black heart. It reflects the precise definition of John’s words on the Antichrist spirit. By this, we know Antichrist’s religious system is developing right on schedule.

It does one thing more. Replacement theology is but another major indicator that, combined with all the other indicators exploding all around us today, shows that this generation is quite likely the one during which the Rapture will take place.